A good camera can tell what it sees.  This is the truth about this 84 year old.

The smile is there but the vitality is hiding

The red around the eyes is now permanent even 10 hours sleep can not erase it.  I look at the picture and all I can think is I’m finally Old.  Getting better looking is out of the question. All I can say now is I’m glad I’m still on the right side of the grass.

Many things are not right.  Like my left side of my body is weaker than the right.   My hearing is almost gone because without my hearing aid I can hear the tone of a person’s voice but I can’t understand what they are saying.  I know it aggravates they as much as it does me.

My ability to recall what I used to know by heart is quickly fading.  This has to be difficult for others to repeat things, tell me information that I used to know.

Things as simple as changing the battery in my hearing aid is difficult because it is small and I can drop it when I try to put it in.  There are times when I want to give it up and crawl in a deep hole.   Then I see others younger than me struggling to survive and I think that there by the grace of God it is not me.

I am not unhappy or depressed but just concerned that what I can do is enough to warrant crawling out of bed and breathing the air or am I just a problem for my family to worry about.  But I love them dearly and I hope I’m worth all the shit they put up with.